This is the blog of Holly Swift, an aspiring writer among other things.

Sunday, February 28, 2016

Time for the Definitive "NO"

For the first time in
my life I find myself genuinely scared for the future of our country. Despite
my predilection to read dystopian sci-fi, I never before lived in fear that any
of those things could come true here. I never actually believed that I would be
compelled to select the lesser of two (or three or four) evils when I went to
the poll. If I honestly didn't like one of the two candidates most likely to
win, I felt safe casting a vote for a third party, writing in a name, or even
in choosing not to vote. I believed that I should vote my conscience, even if
that candidate was not likely to win. I accepted that even if someone with whom
I profoundly disagreed got elected president that it was not the end of
democracy as we know it. They were not likely to actually be evil incarnate and
even if they were, our system of government would keep them from doing too much
damage. I believed that our system of checks and balances and that mutual
respect for the processes of government would keep things functional.

I no longer feel that
way. If Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination, I feel a moral obligation
to vote for whichever Democratic candidate wins the nomination. I feel a sense
of disgust that I must use my vote to vote against
someone. I am not a party loyalist. I have voted for candidates I respect from
a variety of parties. I have a problem with Hillary Clinton's atrocious
interventionist foreign policy. I also have a strong suspicion that she is
going to continue the status quo with regard to economic policies that favor
Wall Street based on the amount
of money she has received from Goldman Sachs. A few months ago, I swore if
she won the Democratic nomination that I was voting third party. But that was
until I saw the absolute nightmares that the Republican party has put forth as
prospects for becoming president. I realized with horror that going nowhere is
better than going backwards. And when I say backwards, I mean back all the way
to a time before this country became a constitutional republic.

What I find absolutely
terrifying about Donald Trump is not actually any of his despicable ideas. In
fact, it is absolutely pointless to have a discussion with his about the
particular merits or lack thereof about his proposed policies. This is because
he has a complete inability to receive feedback in any meaningful way and also
possesses utter disdain for the processes of government itself. These two
character flaws alone should disqualify him from being elected to anything whatsoever. And these two
character flaws are what make him a very threat to the stability of our
country.

A president has to have
the ability to select a cabinet of trusted advisors that will speak up and tell
them when they might be wrong. That means that a president has to be able to
set aside their ego and listen to feedback they might not want to hear. They
can't just say, "you're fired," every time they hear something they
don't like. If someone's ego is so fragile that they cannot remain in
relationship with people with whom they disagree or receive criticism in any
meaningful or thoughtful way, then they have demonstrated beyond a shadow of a
doubt that they are going to fail to select a cabinet that will make their
administration effective. No matter how high or how white their horse, they
will have an abysmal presidency. Donald Trump has such trouble with feedback,
that he even threatens freedom of speech by wanting to make it easier to sue
newspapers that say things he doesn't like. More on just how frightening
this could be will come later.

A president also can't be so certain that they
are doing the will of God that they start to confuse their ideas with God's
ideas. Confusing one's will with God's is certainly easy to do if you've never
actually had to ask God for forgiveness. Donald Trump has also almost
thrown money in the Communion plate, hasn't been to church in so long that
his professed church can't
even find evidence of his that he was ever a member, and reads the Bible so
little that he actually said "Two Corinthians"
in front of a group of Christian prospective voters. I'm certainly not of the
belief that being a practicing Christian is a requirement for assuming the
Presidency. But when Donald Trump tells a group of deeply religious people that
he will protect them from persecution and abuse by the state and then proceeds
to demonstrate such ignorance of that religion's beliefs, practices, and holy
texts if not downright contempt and mockery for them while at the same time
showing a complete and utter disregard for the Constitution and the rule of
law, you have to wonder if what he means by "protect Christianity."

Trump already wants to
completely ban
one religion from entering the country and even shut
down some of their existing places of worship, a blatant violation of the
first amendment. If he were to actually succeed in closing mosques, then what
checks and balances could possibly exist to keep him from shutting down
Christian places of worship that don't conform to his completely warped
misunderstanding of Christianity? What checks and balances could possibly exist
to keep him from even silencing and closing the churches of the growing number
of Evangelical pastors including Max
Lucado, Jim
Wallis, and Russell
Moore who have started to speak out against the possibility of his presidency?
Donald Trump brought up real examples of Christian persecution in Syria in his
speech at Liberty. Yet the very reasons, those cannot occur at the hand of our
government is because we have a constitutional amendment protecting religious
liberty coupled with a system of checks and balances. If you threaten that
amendment or eliminate the system of checks and balances, you fling open the
door to real and genuine Christian persecution.

Donald Trump is a
threat to our existence as a constitutional republic because of the way he is able
to convince his followers that he is better suited to run our country than the
very processes which serve as a foundation for our government. For America, our
foundation is the Constitution. Now, there are varying disagreements as to howto interpret the Constitution and when
and if it should be amended. That's okay the Constitution actually has a
process that makes amendment slow and difficult, but certainly not impossible. However, if we cannot submit ourselves
to the process of government outline
in the document that is the source of its legitimacy, we could very well
experience the complete breakdown of society including chaos, violent
revolution, civil war, a military coup, or dictatorship. I fear all of these
things if Trump is elected president. Some military leaders have already
declared that they would be unable
to follow some of his orders as commander in chief should he follow through
on his campaign promises. If those are not the seeds for a military coup, I
don't know what is.

Donald Trump's most
damning act of hubris is that he has claimed that he
could stand in the middle of a crowded street and shoot someone without losing
supporters. Trump has declared that he could commit murder in public with
witnesses, the most flagrant disregard of any
law that there could possibly be and the response from his audience was to
laugh. While, I sincerely doubt that Donald Trump would actually commit a
murder in broad daylight, that statement still conveys how much power he
believes he has. The terrifying thing is that poll numbers and election results
appear to be proving that statement far more true than we might think. It does
not matter if Donald Trump coughs up even some good ideas, there is absolutely
no policy no matter how sound or needed that is worth throwing away our entire system of government.

The idea that someone
who has such a disregard for the Constitution that he would ban an entire
religion and assert that he could still maintain his support if he shot a
random person in public could select three to four Supreme Court justices, let
alone even one should deeply terrify all of us. He could effectively remove the
checks and balances by selecting puppets who would vote only his way. However,
the Republican party has managed not only to turn out a populist demagogue who
can sway crowds of people to think that it is okay if he commits murder, but then
also has the unmitigated gall to obstruct the current constitutionally elected
president doing his constitutional duty of appointing a justice to the Supreme
Court. Obama has stated that his criteria would be select someone who
recognizes their
role is to interpret the Constitution and not make laws. Not only is this a
violation of those senators' constitutional duties, it is the very betrayal of
conservatism itself, since conserving our existing form of government against
any possible assault of a populist demagogue should be a conservative priority. Instead "letting the
voters decide," by blocking the president from doing his
constitutional duty until after the next election is the very philosophical justification for the kind of populism that gives
Trump power.

But then, the behavior
that many Republicans have demonstrated is that it is completely alright to
shut down the government and oppose everything the president does on the basis
that you do not personally like the president. Like most presidents, Obama has
made a mixture of good and bad decisions. Yet, the attacks against Obama have
been increasingly
vitriolic and based on him as person. The inverse message this behavior
sends is that if you happen to like the president and agree with them, then it
is perfectly okay for the president to trump the rule of law if they're doing
what's "right," fixing what's "broken," or "making
America great again."

In order to change libel
laws, Donald Trump would have to petition the Supreme Court. In order to ban
Islam as a religion or close mosques, there would have to be cases that make it
all the way to Supreme Court. The best case scenario for a Trump presidency is
that he is so ineffective and has thought through his plans so poorly that he
fails to enact any of his campaign promises and that the tide of popular
opinion turns against him as quickly as he gained it or else that he gets
impeached. The worst case scenario is that he actually manages to appoint
several justices to the Supreme Court who betray their duty to Constitution to
enact the will of Trump. Furthermore, if libel laws actually get changed, we
could see regular Orwellian rewrites of current events since Donald Trump has a
consistent
history of denying what he said or even outright saying that he said the
opposite of what he actually said. Trump has a way of normalizing his
outrageous statements and behavior, while we all watch curious to see what he
will do next.

If Donald Trump wins
the popular vote for the presidency and enough electoral votes, there is one
more constitutional check to prevent this absolute travesty: the Electoral
College. It is entirely possible for the electors to choose someone else. Of
course, the consequences of them doing so would no doubt be a Supreme Court
case as well as unprecedented hostility towards the president who did assume
office in Trump's place. Despite these dire consequences, if Trump wins the
election, the Electoral College has a moral obligation to use their power to
prevent a Trump presidency. This is because a Trump presidency is a threat to
the Constitution itself. The Electoral College is beholden to the Constitution
and not popular opinion when they select the next president. The Electoral
College is our last line of defense against a populist demagogue. In fact, one
reason we even have an Electoral College is because the Constitutional framers
thought the common people might be "too easily duped
by promises of shenanigans."

However, the time has
come to give Donald Trump a resounding, big fat "No," to the
presidency. His campaign has ceased to be funny and entertaining and has
crossed the line into horror. This means committing to go to the polls and voting,
even if we don't like any of the candidates.
Our constitutional system of
government is far more valuable than any single idea or policy. We have a moral
imperative to use whatever power and influence we have to ensure that Donald
Trump does not become president, even if that power is only one vote. The time
to give Donald Trump the definitive and unequivocal "no," is not in
the Electoral College. It is not at his impeachment trial. It is not when he
runs for a second term. It is not when he attempts to abolish freedom of speech
and/or freedom of religion. The watershed moment for "NO" is now. If we miss this moment the damage
to our nation and rest of the world could very well be irreparable.